Highlights
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A new physical principle behind quantum physics Tomasz Paterek, Dagomir Kaszliskowski, Valerio Scarani and Andreas Winter from CQT, together with co-workers of the University of Gdansk (Poland), propose a new physical principle called "information causality" in a paper published in Nature. If this principle is enforced, the number of theories that can describe our world is drastically reduced. This might explain why no phenomenon has ever been observed that would go beyond quantum physics. |
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The security of practical quantum key distribution |
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Doping graphene: Molecular tuning An article “Tuning the Electronic Structure of Graphene by an Organic Molecule” that originally appeared in J. Phys. Chem. B which Professor Feng Yuan Ping and Dr Lu Yunhao collaborated with researchers from Zhejiang University has been highlighted in the Sept issue of NPG Asia Materials. Professor Feng and colleagues in Singapore and China report that the adsorption of organic molecules onto graphene could allow the electronic properties of graphene to be controlled and tuned. Their first-principles calculations show that a charge-transfer complex is created with the electron–acceptor molecule tetracyanoethylene (TCNE), allowing the electronic properties of graphene to be tuned by adjusting the coverage of adsorbed molecules. |
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"To solve the mystery of how a mechanical stimulus is translated into a chemical response in biological systems, Asst. Prof. Liu Ruchuan has collaborated with researchers at Columbia University to examine vinculin binding of talin rods under mechanical forces by single-molecule techniques, and proved a hypothesis of mechano-activation of talin for vinculin recruitment. As talin and vinculin play important roles between focal adhesion and the cytoskeleton, such a mechanism as proposed in their recent Science paper [Science 323, p638-641] may exist more generally in biological systems as a mechanism for force transduction." |
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A viewpoint on: Atom interferometry tests of local Lorentz invariance in gravity and electrodynamics An article which Asst/Prof Chung Keng Yeow collaborated with researchers from UC Berkeley, Stanford University and Bremen University has been highlighted in the July issue of Physical Review D ( http://prd.aps.org/ ). It was also selected for a viewpoint in Physics, an online publication of APS started last year that “highlights exceptional papers from the Physical Review journals” (quoted from the website). Measuring quantum interference of atomic matter waves may help detect experimental signatures of a fundamental theory of physics. [Viewpoint on Phys. Rev. D 80, 016002 (2009)]. See http://physics.aps.org/articles/v2/58 |
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An omnidirectional retroreflector based on the transmutation of dielectric singularities Cyclists and runners may one day have perfect reflecting devices to keep them safe in night-time traffic. Scientists here, working with theortical physicists from Scotland and the Czeh Republic, have married a theory of bending light with practical engineering. The team of Prof Ong Chong Kim and his collaborator Dr Ma Yun-Gui of the Temasek Laboratories and theoreticians aboard have designed a retroreflector which have potential use from road safety to radar target tracking. Their paper was published online 28 June 2009 in materials-science journal Nature Materials and in Straits Times, 4 July 2009 titled "Bright idea for bend theory". |
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Magnonic Spin-offs Magnonic crystals, a lesser known analog of photonic crystals, form the basis of magnonics. It is an emerging field which aims to control the generation and propagation of information-carrying spin waves by means analogous to the control of light in photonic crystals. The Laser Brillouin Group has designed a nanostructured magnonic crystal comprising two different magnetic materials and mapped out its dispersion relations. Its frequency bandgaps exhibit magnetic-field tunability, an important property which could find applications in magnonic devices. This work published in Appl. Phys. Lett. Vol. 94 (2009) has been highlighted in Nature Materials Vol. 8 May (2009) as an article entitled Magnonic Spin-offs. |
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A Step Toward Superfast Carbon Memory - Graphene could make computer hard drives denser and speedier Graphene memory can have significant advantages over today's magnetic memory. Bits can be read 30 times faster because electrons move through graphene quickly. With graphene, bits can also shrink to 10 nanometers or even smaller thus making the memory denser. In the Technology Review published by MIT on Wednesday, April 01, 2009, the work of Dr Özyilmaz Barbaros and his team on ferroelectric RAM was publicized in the article titled “A Step Toward Superfast Carbon Memory - Graphene could make computer hard drives denser and speedier” by Prachi Patel.. |
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Graphene gets ready for the big time Work on graphene heated up quickly since five years ago as researchers realized that the material’s two-dimensionality caused it to show unusual quantum behaviours. In the recent American Physical Society meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, physicist were deliberating on how to bring this laboratory curiosity to the commercial. In the article of the meeting published on Natures News, a STM grapheme image due to the recent work of Prof Andrew Wee and Dr Chen Wei of Physics department (A. WEE, NATL UNIV. SINGAPORE/H. HUANG ET AL. ACS NANO 2, 2513–2518 (2008) 390 Vol 458|26 March 2009) was cited in the report. |
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Having fun with dumpling skin: material physics made alive in the kitchen Phys. Educ. 44 180-183 doi: 10.1088/0031-9120/44/2/010 Abstract. We report a school project which equips students with both theoretical and practical knowledge in material physics. We construct dumpling skins from a mixture of flour and water. A series of experiments is then conducted to quantify the toughness, hardness, and tensile strength of the skins, and how they are affected by adding other materials into the original material to form composite materials. Print publication: Issue 2 (March 2009) |
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Our heat memory work has been reported by public news media in the following articles: (1) Physics World . "Memory devices could store data by using heat" (2) PHYORG. "Scientists Propose Thermal Memory to Store Data" (3) Science News Magazine. "Hot New Memory" (4) New Scientists. "Thermal computing is heating up" |
